A pair of teammates chat about various things. We learn that Tabitha and quantum teleportation do not mix.

Date:

2016-10-05

Related:

None

NPCs:

None

Scene Runner:

NA

Players:

....

Tabitha left school grounds at a fast airspeed towards home before the last bell stopped ringing due to exciting potential news about her orphan sister. Things are still in the uncertain potential stages there, but the visit home felt good. What she didn't do while there was tell her caretaker about the bastard owl and its little present, which she's kept with her since Rissa handed it over. Well, kept it with her once she accepted that the existential terror that came over her when she first touched it was a one-off thing.

She's still dressed in her school uniform, although with the addition of a borrowed oversize Batman hoodie and her usual black knit watch cap because she's a wuss when it comes to cold. She's at the run down old city park, sitting on the edge of the pond footbridge. Even though she's close to one end her feet are still nowhere close to dipping into the water. She's got the bundle in her lap, still tied off with packing string, but isn't really paying any attention to it. Rather she's got her eye on the sunset, letting the sun charge her depleted energy reserves as much as possible before having to head back to Coral Springs.

*pop* pop*pop* High up in the sky little flashes of light try to compete with the waning rays of the setting sun. The pops of imploding air everytime Gabrielle disappears are only really audible thanks to the quietness of the afternoon in the abandoned park. Between each teleport Gabrielle lets herself freefall a few hundred feet then teleports back up and forward. When she catches sight of the lonely girl down below she disappears one more time and reappears silently on one of the branches of a tree near Tabitha. "I thought that was you, Tabitha. How are you doing today?" Today she's wearing a puff ski coat blue jeans and a pair of ski goggles over her eyes, which she pushes up onto the top of her head as soon as she appears on the branch, making them double as a hairband.

Since she's there mainly to try and top off her tank after it got drained in a violent and gruesome fashion, Tabitha has her aura extended out to its fullest extent. So the pops in the air get her attention easily and she smiles as she notices their cause. When Gabby 'ports down to the park, Tabitha's aura keys in on the outwardly displaced air to get an idea where she landed and she gives a wave in that direction. "Hi there, Gabrielle. Nice flight suit." She turns her head to grin in Gabby's direction, then shrugs at the question. "I'm doing alright today. Found out there's a chance my orphan sister and bandmate might be a super. Testing back home is still inconclusive, but she still decided to take the 'what team am I' quiz just in case." She rolls her eyes, "To the surprise of absolutely no one who knows her, if she ends up joining us, she'd be an Ares."

Gabrielle looks up trying to do the impossible and see the goggle on her head, "Well, freefalling can be hard on the eyes without protection." Then she turns her attention back to Tabitha, smiling slightly, "I'm glad to hear you're well. And that would be interesting, to have another Jones in Athena." Then her shyness kicks in and she looks down at her feet as she adds, "I was a bit worried when you ran away from the package the other day…"

Tabitha chuckles, "Not a Jones, an Evans. Katrina Evans, the Hurricane with Hips. Secondary vocals, keyboards, and violin in the band. We're orphanage sisters, not bio. But yeah, she'll liven up the folks in blue alright." Then she shrugs and leans back on her hands, "If it turns out she's the one with powers and not being used as a mook by someone else." Then she shudders a bit as Gabrielle reminds her of the effect the parcel currently in her lap had on her mind, her hand going to clutch a bit at her chest just over her heart. "Thanks. It… there was some kind of booby trap on it, apparently set for me. Filled me with more fear than I've ever felt. It… took me a day or so to fight through it."

Gabrielle tilts her head a bit to the side, bringing her eyes back up to Tabitha. With a rueful smile she says, "So, kind of like the way I feel when I have to talk to people I don't know?" She ignores the her mistake on the last names. It just comes with the territory when you can barely bring yourself to talk to people…

That gets a small laugh from Tabitha, "Yeah, might've been about the same." She looks up to the sky where Gabby was bouncing around, "So is that what you do when you're not in a people mood? Go out flying around Gabby-style? Seemed like fun." Tabitha certainly enjoys her own flights.

Gabrielle looks back up at the sky as if she could see herself up there then back down at Tabitha, "Kind of. I was working on fixing the landscape in my mind so I cna teleport to different places in town even if I can't see it. Because teleporting into solid things suuuuuuuucks." She reaches into the pocket of her coat and pulls out a what looks like a really dark Twizzler wrapped in wax paper. After unwrapping it she rips it in half and offers one down towards her fellow Athenian, "Homemade fruit twist?"

"Score!" Tabitha sends up a tendril of her aura to the offered snack, making it visible so Gabby knows when she can let go. Then she nods her understanding of what Gabrielle was working on while nibbling on the fruit twist. "I do something similar when setting up portal sites, but it takes a while and I can't hold many patterns. And yeah, I can imagine how much that would suck to find yourself inside of something. I mean, could you get out of it if it happened?"

Gabrielle shakes her head after taking a bite of her half of the fruit twist, which is very much like biting into a thick, fruit roll-up. "Nope. That's why I have to be so careful. Teleport into a solid object and its bye-bye Gabby… Unless its only an arm or leg. Then its just bye-bye limb." She shrugs, dismissing the risks inherent in her powers and takes another bite of her treat, "So why do you think someone might be using your sister as a "mook"?"

Tabitha cringes at the thought of something like that happening, "Yeah… better to do a lot of scouting instead of leaving bits behind." Then she shrugs at the question about Trini, "A few reasons. First is that what happened is some kind of mental power, which is easy to hide and even easier to make it look like someone else is causing it if you're careful and devious. And the target was someone that everyone knows has had it out for the orphanage girls since grade school, especially Trini and me since the band went big. She's a rich bitch whore without trust fund access so she gets her favors the really old fashioned way. Used to be that I'd keep her away by flirting with her, but Trini can't pull that off since everyone knows she's basically a nun. And she's so straight she takes the Kinsey scale into negatives."

She shrugs as she takes another bite of fruit snack. "She's not the only one that's decided orphans are easy targets, either, and the bitch gets on the ass of anyone that isn't seen as being 'on her level'. So it's a long shot but someone in the overlap of that Venn diagram might've decided to use Trini as a catspaw when the opportunity presented." Then she ducks her head down in a kind of embarassed shrug. "It could also just be that I'm a paranoid mess lately and my favorite person in the world has actual super powers."

Gabrielle nods along with Tabitha's explenation then smiles in a way very few people get to see. Her smile is pure mischief as she says, "We can always test her. Benefit of having a teleporter as a friend. Instant trasportation. We can go get her, then put her through every test we can think of to make her powers pop."

Tabitha's responding grin is just as evil, "Heh. A good idea, and incidentally what I was doing all afternoon after classes. Home is just a spit up the coast, and our caretaker is a Coral Springs alumnus. So we did just that. It was kind of fun, even if I was the guinea pig for most of the tests." She shrugs one shoulder while finishing off her fruit snack. "Results are so far inconclusive, so Nathaniel pulled her from classes for the rest of the week just to be safe. If you want in, I'll be going back for more over the weekend."

Gabrielle pops the last of her homemade treat ito her mouth then for no real apparent reason she flips upsidedown on her branch, her strangely shaped feet locking into place as soon as her blue hair is pointing down at the ground. Then she realizes she's now facing away from Tabitha so she contors around in what would be a painful way for someone without extra vertebrae, so she's now twisted halfway around, looking the right way again. "I would be happy to join in the fun… As long as there's not too many new people around." She looks really worried about that for a moment then goes on, "And that way you don't have to waste a bunch of energy on travel. If you have a picture of where we're going I can get us right there in a blink."

Tabitha watches the semi-random acrobatics and can't help but wince at the self-pretzeling, "I know you're all bendy, but that looks like it hurts SO much." She pulls her eyes away from the sight of a seemingly broken spine and nods, "I've got plenty of pictures of the beach down the cliff. And, well, it is an orphanage and you could say business has been booming lately. There's about twenty kids on varying ages living there right now. Trini and I are the oldest. But we've been doing the testing in the big house, which is off limits to the younger kids except in medical emergencies and holiday dinners so there won't be more than you, me, Trini, and Nathaniel." Then she thinks about that for a moment and adds in a cautionary voice, "Fair warning, though… Nathaniel is a fucking /giant/. There's enough of him to make almost four normal size hims. He can be a bit much at first meeting."

Gabrielle lets her arms relax, going completely limp except for the muscles keeping her twisted around to face Tabitha, "Hurt? I guess if I didn't stretch as often as I do it would but it doesn't. And having extra vertebrea helps too." Then she listens to the description of the situation at the orphanage amd winces a bit until Nathaniel is described. Then her eyes light up and she asks, "So he's kind of like Hagrid?"

"If Hagrid were lean, ripped and sounded like Ardeth Bey from The Mummy." Tabitha isn't too ashamed to admit that she's had the occasional crushy thought about her hunk of a caretaker in her younger years. "But he is a wizard, or a priest of some kind. I'm not really clear on that aspect. "He's a sweetie, although he knows when to put the hammer down." Never let it be said that Tabitha doesn't have anything but the greatest respect her caretaker. Really, never let it be said. He might find out.

Gabrielle taps her fingers, all three of them, in a wave. That and the gleam in her eyes gives her a slightly Machiavellian air. "Do you think we can get him to grown a beard and wear a big, woolly coat? Oh! And grow his hair long? And an umbrella. We have to get him a rickety old black umbrella." She seems to have forgotten all about the fact that she's scared of new people in social situation as she goes through her grand scheme to turn Tabitha's caretaker into Haggrid.

Tabitha watches Gabrielle start to turn into Mr. Burns with a wary expression. Then she just has to laugh and shake her head at the elaborate plan to turn her caretaken into a groundskeeper. "I'd say the odds are greater than zero. But I also think he'd be more likely to dress up as Sirius Black or Newt Scamander." Yes, after being completely ignorant of anything Potter-related when she came to Coral Springs, Tabitha has taken the time to read the books over the summer. Didn't hurt that getting her Lilith memories also returned her enjoyment of fantasy.

Gabrielle's silly smile fades and she looks thoughtfully at Tabitha for a moment. "I've never teleported you anywhere, have I? Hmmm…" She offers out an upside down hand as she continues to talk, "Can I take you the rest of the way home? I think you need to experience this before we take the chance of teleporting you anywhere were people you know might be able to see you."

Tabitha thinks and then shakes her head, "Nope. Never had the pleasure, not even in training." She stands up from the bridge by simply floating up and over, only putting her feet down when she reaches the ground under Gabrielle's perch. "Yeah, we could make the jaunt. Faster than flying for sure." She puts the still unopened owl-dropped bundle into her messenger bag and reaches up to take Gabrielle's hand. "Fire away, sword mistress!"

Gabrielle takes Tabitha's hand and for a quick second nothing happens. Then suddenly its like someone pulls every molecule in both girl's bodies apart, spreading them out throughout the universe and time both. It takes forever and no time at all for for both young women to reform right in the middle of the school's gym, hinting at what may be Gabrielle's favorite place at Coral Springs. As they reform Gabrielle in on her feet and stnading close behind Tabitha. The blue haired girls isn't touching her friend but is clearly ready to catch her if necessary, "Sorry, it can be disorienting the first few times, I know."

It's entirely possible that Tabitha might be the absolute easiest passenger that Gabrielle has ever taken on a piggy-back teleport. Quantumly speaking it's almost like she hasn't brought along any extra mass at all except for the weight of Tabby's messenger bag. The teleport is smooth, easy, and problem free.

Until the landing.

Upon arrival at the gym, Gabrielle doesn't have to worry about catching a disoriented Tabitha because for almost a full second there isn't a Tabitha to catch. Then in the space of maybe four seconds a series of things happen. First there is a female image built of intense electric blue-white energy. Then that image is eclipsed and compressed into a blown glass version of Tabitha. Then there is a half second where the energy woman and Tabitha's forms are overlaping in the same space. Then the glyphs that cover Tabitha's body appear and everything gets suddenly and violently slammed together into a single whole Tabitha. One that drops straight to the floor like a string-cut marionette.

Her mouth is open as if she's been screaming but nothing comes out except ragged breath. After a moment she looks up at Gabrielle and says, "I think I'll just go with flying Air Me, thank you." And then she passes out.